Fast-pitch softball FAQ

• Compact batting swing — the standard diamond phases.
• Slap hit — stance, load, crossover, approach, contact on the run and run-through. There is no planted stride and no rotational finish.

Choose Slap Hit when you slap: that choice gives the clip the slap's own phases and scoring bands — sideways travel through the box is scored loosely rather than read as sway. Only the standard batting swing traces the bat; a slap is read from your body alone.

The hitting checks behind a main issue — casting, hip-shoulder separation, the long-swing read and the rest — run on the standard batting swing only. A slap is not judged against them and its turn is not graded; its main issue comes from general body reads such as head stability, posture and balance.

Keep the front foot and the chalk line of the box visible through contact, and start recording before the crossover step so the whole approach is in the clip.

If you use the guided recorder, pick its Slap Hitting setup: the framing guide allows for roughly twice the sideways travel of a stationary swing, and the clip reaches Motion Lab already marked as a slap.

Listed as not claimed for fast-pitch: workload diagnosis, measured arm stress and measured pitch speed. It does not count pitches and makes no injury-risk claims. How much a pitcher throws and when they rest belongs with the pitcher, a coach and, where there is pain, a medical professional — see pain or injury and the glossary on workload management.

A long swing matters more here because the reaction window is short: a long path tends to arrive late against a quick or rising pitch. The fix it points to is a shorter, quicker path — hands closer to the shoulder, less loop, hips firing straight into a compact barrel.

The mechanics shared by every bat sport (casting, head drift, early shoulder pull, separation, hip turn and posture) are checked against fast-pitch standards rather than baseball's. On a standard batting swing the bat path and contact card can add a rough, clearly labeled estimate of bat-path tilt and bat speed; the ball itself is not tracked.

Fast-pitch has two quick moments worth catching cleanly: contact on a compact swing and contact on the run during a slap. Either can fall between frames at 30 fps.

Slow-motion mode on most phones records at 60 fps or more, but saves a clip that plays slower than the real motion. When you add one in Motion Lab, pick the matching slow-motion option so the timing is read at real speed. Slow-pitch is treated differently — see slow-pitch frame rate.

Hip-shoulder separation at the load is held to the same minimum as baseball. On top of the shared checks, fast-pitch adds a long-swing read, and some of the shared fixes carry a fast-pitch note for the short reaction window: keep the swing compact, quick and on time.

A slap hit is a different motion again, with its own phases — crossover, approach, contact on the run — and its own filming setup; see filming a slap hit.

Use a radar gun or pitching tracker for velocity. Motion Lab does not analyze pitching mechanics either: it does not analyze throwing, and a windmill pitch is a throw.